


Deliverance

by emmadelosnardos



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Time, Genderbending, Genderswap, Het, Post-Reichenbach, fem!lock, sexmold1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-11-14
Packaged: 2017-11-18 13:52:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/561761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmadelosnardos/pseuds/emmadelosnardos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘You—,’ John began, tapping Sherlock’s chest with his index finger, ‘—should have told me what you were doing. At the very least.’ He left his hand there for an instant, between her breasts, before pulling it back suddenly as if he had touched something hot and unknown. </p><p>‘Yes--yes,’ Sherlock said, stumbling over the simplest of answers before she curled her hand around John’s and pulled his hand close to her chest.</p><p>For professorfangirl's prompt, 'Satisfaction without ejaculation.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [professorfangirl (lizeckhart)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizeckhart/gifts).



> Prompt: 'Satisfaction without ejaculation.' I decided to go both ways, and give our characters 'ejaculation without satisfaction' as well as 'satisfaction without ejaculation.'
> 
> Genderbent female Sherlock / male John pairing. I picture Sherlock looking a bit like [Rebecca Hall](http://emmadelosnardos.tumblr.com/post/35668554835/i-cant-stop-seeing-rebecca-hall-as-a-female) in these photos. Thank you to frytha for the super-fast beta work.

It was cold and dark when John came home from the surgery, so cold that Sherlock noticed the wintry smell of sweat about him. He must have rushed home, she reasoned, and overheated on the way back, but she could not imagine what he was rushing home for. It was Friday and he had the next three days off, but he hadn’t scheduled a date that night (she had read his emails that morning, and had checked his phone the night before), there weren’t any football games on, and Lestrade was on honeymoon, so it wasn’t likely John would be joining him down at the pub. So what had he rushed home for?  

Sherlock had not left the flat all day. Since returning to London, she had joined a string quartet as first violin and spent most of her time practicing her parts and learning the music. There was a particularly difficult section of a Schubert quartet that she had worked on most of the afternoon, and she was still working on it when John came in, bringing the chill of night with him. She had paused when she first heard his key in the lock, but she covered the pause with an embellished cadenza and hoped that John wouldn’t know the difference. Sherlock didn’t know why she did this, why she pretended that John’s presence didn’t matter to her any more than it used to, when she was perfectly aware that she had been watching the clock and had kept the ringer of her mobile on, just in case he called to say he was late or had made other plans. He did that more often now, called her to let her know where he was or if he decided to stay out late. It was strange to Sherlock that she was now the one whose whereabouts were more certain, and John who led the more peripatetic life.

But Sherlock wasn’t just sitting at home, she reminded herself; she wasn’t just waiting for John to come home. There was her music career, which actually looked like it might amount to something these days, at least judging from the minor successes she had had so far on the amateur circuit. Then there was the documentation that she had to go through for Mycroft, matching his records with the evidence she had gathered on Moriarty’s network. Between the music and the paperwork, Sherlock hadn’t picked up a new case since she had come back. She couldn’t quite get over her fear of exposed spaces, despite knowing that three of the best snipers in Europe were now dead, and for the first time in her life she didn’t mind admitting that she was afraid.

Mycroft had said that she was depressed; Mycroft suggested that work was the cure. He told her he’d like to continue to employ her as he had been doing, but on a more official basis, put her down for a pension plan at MI5, that kind of thing. She was inclined to take him up on his offer, and didn’t even have the energy for her usual protests.

John was opening the door to the flat now, and Sherlock brought the violin down to rest on her hip.

‘That sounded nice,’ John said. ‘What were you playing?’

‘Schubert,’ Sherlock answered, not looking him in the eye. His face was flushed with the sudden heat from the flat and he wore the brown bomber jacket she liked; she sensed all this in a instant, as well as the spring in John’s step and the suspicion that he had something to share with her. ‘The Rosamunde quartet,’ she clarified, in case that meant something to him. John nodded at her as he shrugged his coat off. She still had her violin tucked against her waist, and as she asked the question she drew the instrument up to her neck, holding it there with her chin while she played with the tuners and plucked softly at the A string.

‘Sherlock!’ John said with annoyance. She stopped her pizzacattoing and stared at him. ‘Have you eaten yet?’ he asked.

Sherlock chewed her lip. ‘I ate earlier,’ she said. It was true; among other changes, she was eating these days, even if it seemed that she couldn’t gain a pound no matter how hard she tried. She had even taken to consulting Mrs Hudson about it, but as Mrs Hudson was the type of woman who was always trying to keep weight off, she assured Sherlock that she looked fine, ‘Like one of those Russian models, m’dear: all leg. I would have died to look like that when I was your age.’ But Sherlock knew that she had lost nearly a stone during her travels and had only gained back a few pounds. This was why she felt tired all of the time, she thought, why her face looked thinner in the mirror, and why her chest was flat as a boy’s. ‘I ate earlier,’ Sherlock repeated, when John looked doubtful, ‘and I’ll have a bit of toast if you’re making tea,’ she added.

‘Will do,’ John said cheerfully. He went into the kitchen to put on the kettle, and then lingered in the doorway, looking at her. Sherlock put her violin back in its case and loosened the hair of her bow before stowing it away alongside the violin.

‘You have something to tell me,’ Sherlock observed, crossing her hands over her chest and then quickly uncrossing them. Crossed arms made her look angry, and she wasn’t angry at John; she was curious.  
‘Something to tell you?’ he asked, feigning ignorance. ‘What could I possibly have to tell you?’

‘I don’t know,’ Sherlock said petulantly. ‘That’s why I’m asking you.’

‘Ah ha,’ John said, leaning against the door frame. He didn’t look angry when he crossed his arms, Sherlock noticed; John just looked like he was indulging her, the way he stared up at her from under his eyebrows, and if he were trying to decide if he should tell her right away or tease her a little more by making her guess. ‘Harry and Clara are dropping Elise off tomorrow morning,’ he said with a smile. ‘Clara’s father had a small stroke and they’re going to Manchester to visit them.’ He waited for Sherlock to murmur her condolences, but she merely stared at him.

‘What does Elise have to do with it?’ Sherlock asked.

‘They asked me to look after her for the next few days.’ He smiled, obviously pleased. ‘They’ll be by in the morning to leave her off, before they drive up.’

‘Why can’t she go with them?’ Sherlock asked. She didn’t know where to put her hands, so she began to pace around the tight space of the living room.

John blinked at her. ‘Harry thought it would be easier for Clara to deal with her father’s health problems if they didn’t have the baby underfoot. It’s only for a few days, until they get back on Monday. And I don’t go back to work till Tuesday, so it all works out.’ He smiled, happy again with the idea.

Elise was Clara’s and Harry’s baby, but she was John’s baby, too. Sherlock hadn’t expected that one, when she went away, and she had still to work out the details. She was losing her touch. If John had wanted a baby, why didn’t he ask… – but Sherlock didn’t want a baby, did she? She had never wanted that, hadn’t wanted the nine-month fuss or the swollen breasts or having to decide whether to give a child her name or his or one of those hideous double-barrels, hadn’t wanted the bother of finding a nanny or Mycroft’s disapproval when she didn’t choose him as godfather. The epidural was the only appealing part of the whole thing. Nevertheless, the idea of John having a baby make her feel as if she really had been dead these last three years.

‘Where will she sleep?’ Sherlock asked. ‘With you?’ She found the edge of the Corbusier and perched on it for a minute before flitting over to the sofa.

‘Yes, she’ll sleep in my room. They’re bringing her crib, so we’ll move it in there.’

‘Hmmm,’ Sherlock said, looking around the living room, ‘She must be walking these days, am I correct?’

‘Crawling and walking,’ John said. ‘So don’t leave out any experiments on ground level; all toxic chemicals will go up on the roof or out in the alley--’

‘Roof, not alley,’ Sherlock said. ‘They’ll get stolen in the alley.’

‘As long as you understand my point. We need to clean up the flat before they come tomorrow.’

‘Don’t touch my experiments or my violin,’ Sherlock said, ‘and I’ll put them away when I come back later tonight.’

‘You’re heading out?’ John asked, surprised. ‘I thought you were going to have tea with me.’

Sherlock waved her hands in the air. ‘Plans have changed,’ she said. She looked around for her coat and gloves. Seeing John’s disappointed faced, she said, ‘Don’t sulk, John, I’ll be back later to tidy up.’


	2. Chapter 2

John woke the next morning to the sound of sirens in the street. He hated hearing sirens so close to their flat; they reminded him of serial suicides and explosions and Afghanistan. He had gone to sleep before Sherlock come back last night, so there was Sherlock to worry about, too. Dammit. John sat up and looked around for his jumper, and was about to get out of bed when Sherlock spoke from the chair in the corner.

‘It’s alright,’ she said carefully. She hoped he wasn’t still sleeping with the gun under his mattress.

‘Jesus Christ!’ John nearly shouted, looking up at the ceiling and pressing his palms into his eyes. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ He couldn’t see Sherlock’s face, could only see by the way she held her shoulders that Sherlock was tense. Had it been the sirens? Had there been something—

‘Sorry to have disturbed you, John,’ she said, formally. ‘I’d best be on my way.’

‘Hold on just there,’ John ordered. ‘You don’t get to spy on me while I’m sleeping and expect me to let you off just like that, do you? I think you owe me an explanation.’

Sherlock didn’t speak, just she sat down on the chair and leaned forward. Her hair was loose and tousled; she had grown it long in the time she had been away, but she rarely wore it down like she had it now. John was momentarily transfixed by the way Sherlock’s long hair framed her face and brought out the black of her eyes.

‘I wanted to watch you sleep,’ Sherlock said. ‘Before your alarm wakes you up in approximately, oh, seven or eight minutes?’

‘Yes, that part was obvious, that you wanted to watch me sleep,’ John said, irritated. ‘I didn’t believe for one second that you were here because there was a banshee in the bathroom.’

‘A banshee is statistically improbable,’ Sherlock said.

‘You are statistically improbable, Sherlock.’

‘A banshee, or  _bean sídhe_ in Irish, named for a fairy woman—’ Sherlock began in a clipped tone.

‘You might as well be a fairy yourself, for all you come and go. But you’re changing the topic,’ John said. ‘You haven’t told me why you are here. Was it the sirens?’

‘The sirens?’ Sherlock cocked her head. ‘No, that was for the dealer down the street. They caught up with him at last.’

‘And you would know that how, exactly?’ John was angry.

‘Who is changing the topic now?’ Sherlock retorted. ‘Why don’t you tell me why you think I’m here?’ Her voice deepened, grew more deliberate as she eased her way into the conversation. John remembered that Sherlock had hardly spoken to him the day before, and thought that it was likely, in that case, that she hadn’t spoken to anyone else, either. No wonder her voice was so husky.

‘Let’s see,’ John began, exasperated. ‘You wanted to measure the length of my REM cycle.’ He knew that wasn’t it, but he hoped a wrong guess would prompt her to tell him.

‘Wrong,’ Sherlock said. John could hear Sherlock’s breathing change, as if Sherlock were forcing herself to inhale more slowly.

‘See how sleep deprivation affects my willingness to slog you?’ John asked.

‘Not slog me,’ Sherlock corrected him. She stood up and took a slow step towards John, then paused before feeling her way in the dark over his bedspread, sitting down next to him. The weight of Sherlock’s body pinned the quilts around John’s legs, and he found it difficult to move. ‘I wonder—’ Sherlock began, taking John’s hand. She rubbed her thumb over John’s knuckles, waiting for John to object and pull away. But John did not pull away.

‘Sherlock,’ John whispered. He was in nothing but his pants under the covers, and he noticed for the first time that Sherlock was wearing her dressing robe thrown over a white vest and those absurd pyjama trousers printed all over with little blue ducks. She never would say how or why she had got that particular set of pyjamas, but when she wore the ducks John knew that it was a sleeping night for Sherlock.

‘You know,’ John said, ‘anyone would think you were the one who had gone missing.’ The thumb over his knuckles stopped moving.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Sherlock asked.

‘Only – you know how children come in to their parents’ rooms? When they have a bad dream?’

‘Are you implying that I’m here because of a nightmare?’ Sherlock turned her head and pulled her hand away. She brought her feet up on the bed and hugged her knees to her chest. ‘Like Elise?'

‘Elise is too young to get out of her crib by herself, Sherlock. She can’t get up and walk yet. But that’s the idea, yes. When children have nightmares, they run into their parents’ rooms.’

‘Babies aren’t exactly my specialty,’ Sherlock said. ‘Nor are nightmares.’

‘No one knows about babies at first. We all have to learn,’ John said matter-of-factly.

John hadn’t given children much thought when he had lived with Sherlock the first time around; Sherlock seemed to crowd out thoughts of other people. It had been too much, too soon – the flat share, the friendship, the desire for her – she had been too much of a good thing, he should have know that it wouldn’t last, that Sherlock was the aberration, the time-out-of-time, and one day he’d wake up, like now, and be thrown terribly, permanently, into the present.

Except there was Elise now, and he wouldn’t undo her for anything. Not even Sherlock’s death. Sherlock must have sensed that, John thought, must have realized just how profoundly John’s world had altered when Elise was born. It was her birth, more than Sherlock’s death, that had thrown John back into time.

He wasn’t supposed to love Elise this much, he thought; he wasn’t supposed to even think of himself as her father. ‘The donor,’ Harry had said, with such propriety about her. But it wasn’t proper, was it? Not the way they had gone about it. He supposed that was why Sherlock was there, in his bed; she wanted to know for herself how it had happened.

‘The thing I can’t figure out,’ Sherlock said, rocking herself back and forth at the edge of John’s bed, ‘is why you consented to it.’

‘To what, Sherlock?’ He  _would_ make Sherlock say what she meant, for once. He was tired of trying to guess Sherlock’s thoughts and tired of Sherlock guessing his. But this thing Sherlock could not guess. That was why she was there in his room, John supposed.

‘Why you consented to be Elise’s father.’ Sherlock pushed the fringe back from her forehead, tugging on the roots of her curls. She did that now, John noticed, tugged at her hair when she was agitated. Perhaps it calmed her. Perhaps when she was dead—

‘I would have thought it was obvious,’ John said, falling back. He rested his hands on his stomach and fumbled absently at his navel under the sheets.

‘Not to me,’ Sherlock whispered. She went back to rocking herself. The tie of her robe had come undone and the fronts of the robe flapped at her side. ‘I want you to tell me.’ She cleared her throat and her voice came out lower, rawer. ‘Please. Tell me how it happened.’

John turned his head to look at Sherlock. He could just see the firm set of Sherlock’s mouth at the corner of his vision as he began to speak.

‘I’d rather not go into details,’ John said. ‘Not here.’

Sherlock turned her head suddenly, her neck uncannily owl-like. ‘Was it here?’ she asked. ‘Is this where you did it?’

‘I don’t see how that’s any of your business,’ John said, ‘but I was just about to tell you, anyway, because I know you’ll worm it out of Clara somehow, and I’d rather you have it from me than from her. Since you’re back here again. And Elise is part of my life, and Harry and Clara too, of course. Things are different, Sherlock. I wasn’t just waiting, you know.’

‘I know you weren’t,’ Sherlock said. ‘But _I_ was. You know I was.’ She turned her head around again, so John couldn’t see the expression on her face. ‘I waited two years, ten months.’ Her consonants were sharp, sibilant.

‘During which time you never bothered to get in touch,’ John said. ‘Oh yes, while we’re on the subject of the last three years—’ He stopped himself and sighed. ‘But I’m going first, is that how it is?’ Sherlock took a corner of the sheet and rubbed it between her fingers, back and forth, back and forth. She did not respond. They had already fought about Sherlock’s death and her unholy resurrection, and then had fought about it all again, several times over, before John had let her come back to 221B. And even then, it was a trial period, they had both agreed on that – so why was Sherlock there now, pushing him to talk about something he didn’t want to talk about? Just what was so important that Sherlock would risk another row?

‘Elise was conceived just like every other baby –’ Sherlock turned around to glare at him and John corrected himself. ‘Like almost every other baby. Not at a clinic, Sherlock, if that’s what you want to know. God, it’s always so personal with you, isn’t it?’

‘Of course it’s personal with me,’ Sherlock said. ‘You surely haven’t forgotten that – flatmates – should – know – the worst –’

‘Just stop it already, alright?’ John said, pounding his fist against the bed. The mattress moved and it was satisfying to see Sherlock move with it. He turned on his side to look over at Sherlock, but Sherlock had turned away again. ‘I don’t say things like that to you,’ John said. ‘I don’t  _intentionally_ –’

‘I’m sorry,’ Sherlock said, and John almost believed her when she twirled around again and then, suddenly, lay down on her back, at John’s side. She brought her hands together in front of her chest, as if she were praying, and stared at the ceiling. John stared upwards, too. It was easier to talk to Sherlock like this, he realized, when he wasn’t trying to get Sherlock to look at him one minute and then had to avoid her gaze the next. It was easier with both sets of eyes focused on the light fixture above.

‘This is what happened,’ John said, trying to sound like this was an easy conversation. ‘I was at their flat one night – I spent a lot of time there after you died – and we all got smashed. I didn’t even care that Harry was drinking. I just wanted to forget – well, honestly, Sherlock, I wanted to forget that you had died. And I don’t know how it came up, but one of them said that they had been thinking of having a baby, and I asked them if they planned on adopting, and they said no, they were going to find a donor. And then Harry looked at me, and I just  _knew_. I knew what she was going to ask. And I said “no,” at first, because, really, having a baby with my sister’s girlfriend was not how I had imagined starting a family. Not that I’d given much thought to that, honestly, since I came back from Afghanistan, but –’ John paused.

‘Go on,’ Sherlock said. ‘I want to know what happened. Were you drunk?’

‘It didn’t happen that night,’ John said. ‘Sorry, I know that would have made for a more interesting story. But wine was involved – quite a bit of wine, actually – d’you know what it’s like to have sex with a person who’s willing, but who isn’t attracted to you?’

‘Not exactly. Not from your perspective; from hers,’ Sherlock clarified, then quickly amended: ‘But not towards you, John. Not about you.’

It was the late hour, John thought, the madness of the night, that made Sherlock come into his room and say these things.

‘Wait – are you saying – you’ve had sex with someone when you didn’t want to?’ He would ignore the other thing that Sherlock had said, hope that they’d both be able to ignore it and carry on like they had done. It was still a trial period, after all.

‘Must you be so dull?’ Sherlock said, sighing heavily. ‘Obviously  _I_  wasn’t the one who was forcing someone else to–’ She cut herself off suddenly, reconsidering. ‘Not that I meant to imply that you were forcing Clara into it. It was quite the opposite, from what I gather.’ She rolled over onto her side so that she could look directly at John, but he kept his eyes fixed on the ceiling.

‘Clara wasn’t forcing me into anything,’ John said between his teeth. ‘I agreed to it. I said – I said to her and Harry – “Why don’t Clara and I stay in one night with a bottle of wine and then—try to do it.” And that’s what happened. She came over here—it couldn’t be at their place, Harry didn’t want to be around, didn’t want to hear anything about it. Even went to stay with our parents that weekend, kept it quiet through that, too. It was just Clara and me for the weekend. After that first night, she got more comfortable, said she didn’t need the wine.’

‘How many times?’ Sherlock asked. Her hands trembled, slightly. John stole a glance at Sherlock out of the corner of his eye. The sun was rising now, a late winter sunrise, and light was just starting to come through the window. Sherlock’s face was in the shadow, her body a sinuous dark line against the white curtains. She leaned her face against one palm, her other hand resting lightly on the dip in her waist. The pose struck John as unusually intimate, coquettish even, but he reasoned that Sherlock was oblivious to the impact she had on him, or she would never have climbed into his bed.

‘Four—five? I’m not really sure. As much as we could, really. Had to do it as much as possible while she was ovulating. She even stood upside down against the wall, right after we fucked; some midwife had told her she’d let more semen in that way.’

‘Does that really work?’ Sherlock asked sceptically.

‘Something worked, but God knows I can’t say what it was, exactly. It gave us something to laugh about together, though, and that made things easier.’ John paused and took a deep breath. He wondered if it wasn’t the same kind of nerves he was feeling now, with Sherlock lying so close to him. ‘Clara didn’t get her period again, after that, so really it couldn’t have been easier. Everything went the way it was planned. A minor miracle. After three months they were ready to go public to Clara’s family. She has loads of brothers and sisters and cousins and they had all given up on her having a baby, but then along comes Elise—’

‘Your daughter,’ Sherlock said.

‘Yes, my daughter, technically, thank you very much, but not everyone is supposed to know that, Sherlock, so it’s best if you don’t go around talking about Elise to everyone who stops by. Mrs Hudson included.’

 ‘When have I ever talked about Elise?’ Sherlock asked.

‘Never,’ John admitted. ‘And that’s part of what this is about, right? You wanting to know about Elise, and Harry and Clara, and where you fit into all of this now. And not being able to figure it out yourself.’ He waited for Sherlock to respond, but Sherlock had turned away from John, her back now a knotty curve under the dressing gown. John reached out to touch Sherlock’s shoulder, to bring her out of her own thoughts. Sherlock shook his hand away. ‘What is it, Sherlock?’ John asked.

He had not meant to come so close to Sherlock, but she was in his bed – in his bed, he reminded himself, then followed that thought with the admonition that Sherlock being in his bed didn’t mean anything; after all, she was the kind of woman who had no qualms about walking from the bath to her bedroom with only a towel turbaned around her head – she wasn’t having him on, she was just gathering information. And he was damned if he’d pass on the opportunity to enjoy her bedside deductions.

‘I still don’t understand why you did it,’ Sherlock said at last. ‘You told me how, but not why.’

‘Why? Sherlock – because they were looking for a donor, and it’s a big hassle to go to a clinic or adopt, and not everyone wants to do that just to have a child. They didn’t, so I offered. That’s all. To do it the old-fashioned way.’

Sherlock harrumphed and snorted and shook her head. Then she asked bluntly, ‘If I had been here, would you have done it?’

There was a long silence when John thought about how to respond. Now was the time, if there was ever a time, to tell Sherlock that he wanted  _her_ , not Maria Clara Morstan, not Dr Sarah Elizabeth Sawyer, but Sherlock Loveday Holmes, she of the extravagant names and the silver spoons, the body of an over-tall ballerina and the mind of a philosopher. He still wondered if she had a heart, and that doubt was what made him hesitate.

‘Probably not,’ John admitted. ‘A lot changed when you died, Sherlock. I began to – reconsider – certain things. Things you probably wouldn’t understand.’ He felt the bitterness in his mouth. Was this just another argument, then, another chance for them to rip at each other about Sherlock’s return?

‘You always underestimate me, John,’ Sherlock said, so low that John could barely hear her.

‘What?’ John asked.

‘You—underestimate me,’ Sherlock repeated. ‘You think I don’t understand—relationships. You think that because I don’t have many friends, because I choose not to associate with Mycroft more than I have to—and that is changing, you know—that I don’t understand people.’

John put a hand over his face, and took a deep breath before he responded. ‘I thought that’s what you said. But I think I probably overestimate you, Sherlock. I expect too much from you. And that’s the problem.’ He shifted so that he was lying on one hip now, facing Sherlock.

‘Why’s that?’ Sherlock‘s voice was rushed and muffled. She rolled onto her back again and he was tempted to touch her shoulder, her hair, her waist, to end the tension once and for all.

‘Because I’m always disappointed. You’re—you’re like—I don’t know how to explain it. I always want to know how you do it. How you are who you are,  _why_  you are who you are. But you understand me so much better than I’ll ever understand you.’ He paused, but Sherlock lay still and did not respond. Her hair billowed around her, on the pillow, and he clenched his fists to give himself courage. ‘It’s frustrating, being your flatmate, being your friend. I always want more, and you can’t give it.’

‘Hmm,’ Sherlock said.

‘It’s like—do you know what it’s like? Always wanting something, and not being able to have it? Never feeling that satisfaction, Sherlock?’

‘Yes, I do,’ Sherlock said, but John continued.

‘And when you died, I thought it all made sense. I thought—’ He bit his tongue.

‘What did you think, John?’ Sherlock stretched minutely, arching her back off of the bed so that she could only feel her heels and shoulder blades touching the bed, then relaxed into the firm mattress. John could not take his eyes from her.

‘I thought….I thought I understood you,’ he somehow said. ‘I thought—it made sense to me at last. You were the mad genius. Not a fake. But somehow, you let Moriarty get under your skin. And that’s what I couldn’t forgive you for, Sherlock. Even though it made sense to me. That you would choose your reputation over—’

‘Over what?’ Even when she was seducing him—and by now he was certain that’s what it was—her voice remained precise and calm. John, on the other hand, could feel the sweat build under his armpits and at his temples, and his heart was beating nearly as fast now as it had when she had first startled him into wakefulness.

John took a deep, raggedy breath. ‘Over me. That you would choose your reputation over me. Over your friends. But mostly, over me. That you would leave me. It made sense to me, the more I thought about it, and I started to believe that you were that way all along, and I was the one who had been fooled. I thought of so many times when you had ignored me, when you had left me at a crime scene, when you had laughed at something I said. Or worse things, like lying to my about Irene’s death—I know about that, Sherlock—or drugging me to prove a point. And then I thought of all the other times when you had wanted my approval, and I gave it to you, fool that I was.’ John paused and looked upwards. ‘Yes, I’ve been a fool.’

‘I wanted you to think that,’ Sherlock said stridently. ‘You  _had_ to think that. Don’t you see? You had to believe that I didn’t care about anyone but myself.’

‘But I didn’t want to!’ John burst out. ‘I wanted to believe—’ he felt the beginning of tears coming on. He had not cried for Sherlock in almost two years, and he wasn’t about to begin now. His voice would give him away, though, so he stopped talking.

‘Do you believe me now?’ Sherlock tentatively asked.

Now it was John’s turn to look away, to roll over onto his other side and bare his back to Sherlock. He would not let Sherlock see him cry.

‘John. John.’ It was almost soothing, the way Sherlock was saying his name. ‘John, it had to be done,’ Sherlock said. ‘It had to be done, even if it ruined—’

‘It ruined  _everything_  about our friendship,’ John spat out. ‘Don’t you see? If you had died on a case—if you had died running down a criminal—if you had been kidnapped—I still—I would have been able to believe—’ He was crying now, sobs that he couldn’t keep down. Sherlock  _would_  feel what he felt,  _would_  feel guilty for what she had done…

‘Would you rather I were dead?’ Sherlock asked. He didn’t know when she had put a hand on his shoulder, but he noticed it now, and let her tug gently at him so that he was lying on his back again. Sherlock left her hand at his shoulder and waited for him to respond.

‘That’s a stupid question, Sherlock!’ John said. ‘I don’t wish you dead. I just wish that—that all of this had never happened. That I hadn’t met you, even.’ He knew that wasn’t quite true, but he couldn’t help but say it. He wanted to hurt her as she had hurt him.

‘Do you really wish that?’ Sherlock voice was carefully flat. She removed her hand from his shoulder.

‘I _did_ ,’ John said. ‘I did wish that, when you first died. I didn’t want to acknowledge what you had meant to me, when you were stupid enough to go and throw it all away.’

‘And when I came back?’ Her voice was hopeful, had lost its stridency.

John shifted on his side of the bed, turning to lie on his side again, facing her, so that he could say the words to Sherlock. ‘When you came back, I wanted the same thing. I wished that none of it had happened. That I hadn’t met you, so you couldn’t die, so you couldn’t come back. I didn’t want that kind of responsibility.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Sherlock said indignantly. They were both facing each other now, lying on their sides a few feet apart. ‘What responsibility did you have?’

‘You came back,’ John said. ‘Which meant you weren’t a coward, or a fake. You were more real then than anyone I had ever known, and I still thought you were the best person I had ever met, but I couldn't forgive you for throwing it all away for Moriarty.'

'I didn't throw it away for  _Moriarty_ ,' Sherlock said with a scowl. She did not take her eyes from his face, and John found it difficult to look her in the eye when she spoke so vehemently.

'No. I know that now. You died for me, for Mrs Hudson, for Lestrade. You died for all of us. You sacrificed yourself for us, Sherlock. But I never asked for it. I never asked for you to do that, and if you had told me you were going to do it, I wouldn’t have let you. I would have gone with you.’

He shook his head and ran a sweaty palm over his face. Sherlock smelled so sweet, there beside him, and he wished that they could just get the row over with and skip ahead to the make-up sex (that is, it would be make-up sex if they had had sex before; he supposed you couldn’t really have make-up sex with a person if it was the first time you were together). But it was Sherlock, so nothing was straight-forward.

‘I know that’s what you would have done,’ Sherlock said. ‘You would have tried to protect me. You always _would_ do that.’ She paused. ‘That is why it had to be the way it was. I couldn’t tell you because I couldn’t risk it. I’ve told you this already, John.’

‘And what really gets to me,’ John continued, as if he hadn’t heard her words, ‘is that you knew that I would respond that way. You knew that I felt that way about you, that I would follow you even if it was risky, because I loved you, and you never said a bloody thing one way or another.’

‘I  _did_ ,’ Sherlock protested. ‘I  _did_  tell you.’

‘Yeah?’ John asked. ‘Was that one of those conversations when I wasn’t around? Because I sure as hell don’t remember you saying anything about love. If that word is even in your vocabulary.’ They still lay prostrate, facing each other, but Sherlock raised her head and John could see her fine nose and mouth profiled against the light. He wanted to kiss her; he wanted to throw her down against the bed and straddle her and tell her that he forgave her, _of course he forgave her_ , she was giving him a second chance, and how many people got second chances in life? But they were having an argument, and John had to play his part.

Sherlock pressed one finger to the spot between her eyes, as if she had a migraine coming on; she did get them, John knew, but it was also the gesture she used when she wanted to hide her expression from him, when she could not make her face plastic enough to give it another's semblance.

‘I told you there was _no one else_ ; there was just you, John. What else could I have meant by that?’ Even in the shadow, John could see Sherlock’s gaze turn upon him, staring at him from under her fingers. ‘Was there something else I should have said? Something I should have done? Would it have helped?’

‘You—,’ John began, tapping Sherlock’s chest with his index finger, ‘—should have told me what you were doing. At the very least.’ He left his hand there for an instant, between her breasts, before pulling it back suddenly as if he had touched something hot and unknown.

‘Yes—yes,’ Sherlock said, stumbling over the simplest of answers before she curled her hand around John’s and pulled his hand close to her chest. He could not tell where her sternum ended and her breasts began, but he imagined moving his fingers lower, to paw at one brown nipple—god, it drove him crazy, knowing that she had those dark nipples when her skin was so pale and so freckled—just under the worn cotton of her vest. But he kept his hands still, let Sherlock touch him before he touched her, and stopped thinking about her breasts for long enough to notice that she was speaking again. ‘I should have. Told you what I was doing.’ She looked up at John, then looked down at where their hands were intertwined.

John had scarcely time to think of a response before Sherlock came towards him, pushing him onto his back. Suddenly her long body was over his, hovering and hesitant, her hands resting lightly on either side of John’s ribs. Then Sherlock’s mouth was on his mouth, kissing him, actually kissing him, and it was so sweet, yet shocking, this new intimacy, their faces pressed tightly together, mouths open to each other. John never imagined that Sherlock would be such a gentle kisser—he would have taken her for a biter, if he had been pressed to say—but there she was, moving sweetly over John’s lips, pulling away just enough to show John that he had a choice here even if he hadn’t had a choice before, when she died.

He really should stop this, John thought, and talk things through, find out what Sherlock was on about, but he didn’t; instead, he wrapped his arms around Sherlock and pulled her closer, feeling her weight settle over his hips and chest. She was heavier than he expected, accustomed as he was to thinking of Sherlock as the sort of creature who fed on thought alone. But there were nearly two metres of flesh and bone pinning him against the bed, and this was real, this was warmth and sweat and the soft sway of Sherlock’s vest, all of these smells and sensations that John had felt before, but never together in this way, never the fresh green scent of Sherlock so close like this, so willing, so sweet….

‘Is this what you wanted?’ Sherlock asked, drawing back an inch. ‘Did you want this?’ John _did_ want it, he wanted it quite badly, and so he nodded and put his hands around Sherlock’s face and pulled her down towards him. Then Sherlock was kissing him again, the sweetness turned exigent, and John opened his mouth to speak, but he couldn’t speak with Sherlock kissing him like that, not when Sherlock’s tongue was in his mouth.—And what were words for, anyway, when Sherlock Holmes was kissing him, when Sherlock’s thin chest was pressed close to his, and they were both panting with the same excitement of first touch?—When it was enough to just know that Sherlock felt the same, had always felt the same, had died because she felt the same? What were words for, in those moments?

‘Yes,’ John said, ‘Yes, yes, yes, Sherlock.’ He was aware of Sherlock’s hips rocking against his, of the steady rise and fall of Sherlock’s chest, of the swift scramble of Sherlock’s fingers as she pulled the quilts down and found John’s bare torso.

It had been nearly two years since John had had sex. Clara was the last one, but she was the first one (the only one—why the only one? John wondered) since Sherlock had left, and the first one for some time before that. John had known Clara only in those strange, drunken hours when he had come inside her (always inside her, that was the point), again and again, and the only satisfaction he had had was in thinking that, perhaps, something good would come of it, that his joyless orgasms could be used for some greater purpose. His virility relieved him; he would not have to go through that again, would not be the unmentionable stud to his sister’s wife…

John wondered how long it had been for Sherlock, if she had had the time to have lovers while she was dead. (Do the dead make love?) The familiar sensation of jealousy struck him: jealousy over Sherlock’s absence, jealousy of Sherlock’s cases, jealousy of Sherlock’s intelligence and beauty. John had been left behind, and this knocking together of bodies was not enough to make him forget that altogether. But he would take what he could for now.

John reached up to Sherlock’s face as she pulled back from him long enough to shake off her loose dressing gown. Sherlock got as far as reaching for the hem of her vest when John stopped her, grasped her face in his hands, and looked Sherlock straight in the eye.

‘If we are going to do this,’ John said slowly, ‘there have to be some rules.’

‘Yes,’ Sherlock gasped. ‘Yes, John.’

‘First,’ John said, ‘you have to promise me that if you are going to leave me again, you will tell me.’ He itched to get his hands up under her shirt, but he  _would_ say what needed to be said first; he would not think of her breasts or of how much he longed to rub his fingers along her ribs, not until he had said his piece.

‘But I’m not going to leave you,’ Sherlock said. ‘Don’t you see? That’s the whole point. That’s why I’m here.’

‘Promise me, Sherlock,’ John demanded. ‘Tell me you’ll talk to me. Or we’re going no further.’

‘I promise,’ Sherlock said swiftly. John stared at her through slanted eyes.

‘Secondly, why are you doing this, Sherlock?’ he asked.

‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Sherlock said, sharply. She moved her hips lower, to settle around his groin, and he groaned when she rubbed against his erection.  _The little minx!_ , he thought, then chastised himself for his old-fashionedness; of course Sherlock could do whatever she liked, as long as he didn’t say no…and so far he had not said no. But he _would_

keep her talking, however delightful it was to imagine her warm cunt stretched against his pelvis, opening wider as she rocked against him…

‘It’s not obvious to me,’ John said, even as he wrapped his hands again around Sherlock’s face. He  _would_  look Sherlock in the eye, by God, he would, despite the paths that his imagination wanted to take. John felt himself grow harder as he pictured Sherlock riding him, just as she was now, but without those ridiculous pyjamas. How he longed to pull them down, how he wished he knew which panties she was wearing, if she really went without them as she had hinted at once, or if a Brazilian thong was more her style. If she was wearing a thong, and if he pulled the pyjamas down, he would still only be able to see the lace panel in front, and perhaps a few stray hairs—he suspected she might be a redhead, down there—peeking out at each side. Then he might reach behind her, let his hands follow the edge of her panties, until he spanned each of her generous buttocks in his palms. She did have such a round arse, for such a slender woman.

But Sherlock struggled to pull herself out of John’s grasp, shaking her head as if she could shake away John’s questions. John held onto her more tightly, forcing Sherlock to look him in the eye. ‘Tell me, Sherlock,’ John said between clenched teeth. ‘I want to hear it.’

‘I—want—you!’ Sherlock gasped out, then leaned down into John’s face, kissing him again and again in fierce, rapid movements. ‘I have always wanted you this way,’ she murmured. ‘I’ll say it again if I have to,’ she continued. ‘But you have to believe me, John. John. John. _John_.’ She punctuated John’s name with light kisses to his eyelids, then worked her mouth down to the round swell of John’s cheeks. John gasped—oh, the pleasure, oh, the wanting. He wanted Sherlock, too, and he had never doubted that.

John still wished that Sherlock had brought him along, but he felt a loosening in his chest as he thought about what she had gone through, out there alone in the underworld, all those long months. So he wrenched his cheek away from Sherlock’s kisses and returned his mouth to hers, and sucked on Sherlock’s lips for long minutes, making her shudder and gasp above him. Then John grasped her waist until Sherlock understood his intention and let John flip her over, so John was on top looking down on her, their legs and hips still hidden under the quilts, chests touching at each exhalation. He could not stop kissing Sherlock, could not stop seizing those wide lips between his teeth and running his tongue over Sherlock’s philtrum and up to her nose, tracing each precise nostril with wet care.

John wanted to do this, again and again, to stay caught in this moment, just so; he wanted to hear Sherlock say his name in the same way, to hear her say  _John_ , like that,  _yes yes yes_. He moved his mouth to Sherlock’s temple and licked slowly around her ear, loving how Sherlock’s breath grew faster, how there were now little hums of pleasure rumbling deep in her throat. John sucked on the outside of her ear, then dipped his tongue inside and swirled it around until Sherlock said his name again, gasping, and he felt Sherlock’s head fall against the pillow, heavy with satisfaction.

Sherlock’s eyes had been closed, but she opened them now to look at John. They stared at each other, lovingly, until Sherlock spoke.

‘I think I should go back to my room now,’ she said, looking away from John as she said it, as if she had guessed his fantasy about her arse and wanted none of it.

John felt a cold hardness in his throat; he tried to swallow but he could not. ‘Sherlock—’ he began.

‘So you don’t do something you'll regret later,’ Sherlock said as she rolled out from under him. But before she could sit up, John grabbed her elbow and pulled her back towards him. He didn’t pin Sherlock under him again, not when Sherlock seemed so intent to leave, but John wasn’t going to let her get off that easily, not after so many months apart, not after this strange early morning visit.

‘Don’t you fucking do this!’ John said, letting go of Sherlock as soon as he realized that Sherlock wasn’t fighting him. John sat up quickly and twisted to look down at Sherlock, whose eyes were bright even in the dark. John did not care that the quilt slid down, did not care that he was only wearing his pants and he was obviously aroused; why should he be ashamed, when Sherlock had invited herself into his room, when Sherlock was the one who kissed him? Then a thought occurred to him: What if Mycroft had been right? What if Sherlock was a virgin, after all? What if he had read the situation wrong, and Sherlock hadn’t come in tonight looking for sex, but for an innocent snog?

On the other hand, he found it improbable that Sherlock would dress the way she did and be unaware of the influence she had over others. Not with those skirts, those leather pumps; not with that hair – by God, he had teased Sherlock often enough about her hair, and the products she kept scattered around the loo, and the long dark hairs that he found stuck to the side of the bath after she showered. He watched her pin it up before they left for a case and, when he was lucky, he saw her leave it down when they spent the day in the flat. John teased her about her fastidiousness when it came to her hair, but she had never said a word back to him about how he was going grey, about how he seemed to forget to get haircuts now that the army didn’t require it of him. She had not said anything about those things, but John had seen the way that Sherlock looked at him, before she died and after she returned, and John doubted the innocence of that gaze: appraising, discerning, deducing, desiring.


	3. Chapter 3

Sherlock desired him. He knew that now. Sherlock might do what she like, might squeak out a word of protest or an excuse, but John knew that her desire had brought Sherlock to him in the middle of the night, and he dared to believe that it was not an unpracticed desire. He could not stand the responsibility of being Sherlock’s first lover, not when he still had this other terrible responsibility of being good enough to have deserved her sacrifice.

‘Do you know how many nerves the outer ear has?’ Sherlock softly asked. She looked deceptively delicate lying there, her face barely visible in the low light, and John enjoyed the image for a moment before answering her. He could still scarcely believe that Sherlock had kissed him and had allowed John to kiss her back.

‘How many?’ John asked. Then, ‘No, don’t answer that, Sherlock. What’s this about?’

‘What’s what about?’ Sherlock said evasively.

‘Why did you say that you needed to go just then?’ John asked. Even in the dark, he could see how Sherlock turned her face away from him. ‘You promised me you wouldn’t leave again,’ John said.

Sherlock turned around quickly. ‘I’m not leaving you!’ she protested. ‘Don’t be histrionic.'

John brought a hand to his face and rubbed at his forehead. ‘Sherlock,’ he began, shaking his head. ‘You—’ He broke off, then started again. ‘You’re trying to give me a chance to back out, is that it, Sherlock?’ he asked. ‘That’s why you were trying to tell me a story about the nerves in the ear. To distract me. Is that it?’

Sherlock nodded and John continued.

‘So you have to  _tell_  me these things, Sherlock! It doesn’t count if you just decide that I don’t want this and try to give me the easy out. Tell me what you’re thinking for once,’ John sputtered.

‘ _What_ doesn’t count?’ Sherlock tried to disguise the suspicion in her voice but John sensed her anxiety.

‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ John said. ‘Sorry.’ He took one of Sherlock’s hands in his and raised it to his mouth, kissing it. Sherlock did not pull away; instead, she seemed disappointed when John set her hand down, and she reached out to touch John’s knee.

‘What did you mean?’ Sherlock asked.

‘I meant—’ John began. ‘I meant—I meant I want to know what you’re thinking, Sherlock. And I know you may not even know yourself, but I _still_ want to know. I want to know what’s going on. That’s what I mean by trust. You didn’t trust me, when you decided to die all by yourself.’

‘I’m not dead now,’ Sherlock interrupted, but John kept speaking.

‘But it’s hard for me to trust you again,’ John said. ‘That’s how it works, Sherlock. One person breaks the trust, and the other can’t do it anymore.’ He paused. ‘I’m not saying I don’t want this. I’m just saying…’ He trailed off.

‘That you want to trust me,’ Sherlock concluded. ‘And you want me to trust you,’ she added in a soft voice.

‘Yes.’

‘I trust no one as much as you,’ Sherlock said.

John scoffed. ‘That’s a good start,’ he said. ‘Now continue as you meant to go on.’

‘I—.’ Sherlock opened her mouth and shut it again quickly. Her fingers strayed to the inside of John’s knee, where she stroked the smooth skin with a light touch. John wanted to relax into the purposefulness of the caress, but Sherlock quickly rolled to the edge of the bed and swung her legs over the side in one smooth motion and, just as swiftly, she removed her pyjama bottoms. Then she looked at John and moved towards him on her knees.

‘Sherlock!’ he said, wanting and yet not wanting this: wanting her long torso and the round swell of her belly, wanting her long dancer’s legs to be wrapped around his, and yet not wanting to take things further, fearing what it would be like later on when Sherlock came to her senses and remembered who she was. Certainly, _this_ woman could not be Sherlock, this woman who smelled of moss and orange blossoms and artemisia, who was now reaching down to her hips to straighten her dark panties—bikinis, not a thong, he noted—this woman who was sliding her hands under her vest and lifting it up and over her head. John watched her pull the shirt off, noticed how the black strands of her hair settled over her naked shoulders. She flicked her hair back and as she raised her arms again he saw her nipples in the pale light from the window. He had asked her to speak to him, and perverse as she was, she said not a word, merely looked at him before bringing her hands up to cup her breasts. Sherlock kept her eyes locked on his face as she played with herself, rubbing her fingers over her nipples. But John could not keep looking at her face, not when she was tugging her nipples into sharp points and pushing her hips back to sit on her feet. She spread her knees wide and curved her spine sensuously as she closed her eyes with a sigh.

‘John,’ she said. ‘I trust you with this.’ Sherlock reached out towards him, then, and took his hand in hers. ‘I trust you know what you’re doing,’ she half-whispered. He sat up on his knees then and leaned towards her, taking her face in his hands.

‘Sherlock,’ he said. ‘We can’t go back if we do this.’ He looked at her as tenderly as he could, willing her to understand that she could end this now, without prejudice; she could end this, turn around and go back to her own room, and John would chalk it up to an early-morning moon spell,  _folie à deux_ , or what-have-you.

‘I don’t want to go back,’ she said. ‘I thought—I thought we could—I thought it would be the same, when I returned from the dead. But it appears that I miscalculated, didn’t I?’ She smiled ruefully and turned her face into his palm, and he felt the soft skin of her cheek run against his palms. ‘It’s not the same as before, John. And I find that I don’t want it to be the same.’ Her voice was melancholic and he wanted to pull her into his arms, to soothe her and smother her and take her and take her and take her. Instead, he lowered his mouth to the centre of her chest, to the slope between her breasts, and kissed the spot where he imagined her heart to be.

‘So—we’re going forward, is that it?’ he murmured against her skin, then darted his tongue out to taste her. John felt Sherlock’s hands on his head, in his hair, hugging him against her, pinning him to her body.

‘John,’ she said, not bothering to disguise the arousal in her voice.

‘How do you want to do this?’ he asked from below. His mouth found one nipple and his hand plucked at the other, while Sherlock gasped above him.

‘Don’t be silly, John,’ she said, half commanding him, half teasing him. ‘We’re going to fuck.’ She said that last word precisely, enunciating the final consonant, and John reflected that he had never heard Sherlock say  _fuck_  in quite that tone of voice. He rather liked it, so he pulled her towards him until she tumbled on top of him and they were both lying down again. She kissed his mouth, kissed him deeply and beseechingly, her tongue moving at the same pace as her hips. He knew what kind of movements she was imitating, with her tongue in his mouth and her pelvis firm against his, and she knew that _he_ knew what she was on about, but he wouldn’t give her that satisfaction quite yet.

Instead, he rolled over on his side, and Sherlock followed his lead, so they were both on the same level again, side by side. But John acted quickly and before Sherlock could respond he had flipped her so that she lay facedown on the bed. Suddenly his mouth was on the nape of her neck, sucking at her hairline, and he was whispering to her to lie still, to trust him, to let him do this to her. She did not ask him what he would do, exactly, and John felt both relieved and emboldened by her submission.

He ran his hands down her back, tracing the path of her vertebrae while he admired the sharp lines of her muscles. Some day he would give her a massage, scrape and pound at her until she was pliant and tingly beneath him, until she was ready to spread her legs for him and let him lay his cock inside her. But tonight he wanted something less restful—not that he thought it was likely that Sherlock would consent to something as sentimental as a romantic massage, anyway—and so John kissed Sherlock between her shoulder blades and lifted his own hips to shimmy off his pants. She must have felt him shifting behind her, and heard the sound of fabric sliding down his legs, but when Sherlock tried to turn around to see what he was doing, John gently but firmly set her head down against the mattress as he lifted her hips with his other hand.

‘I think it’s time we take these off, don’t you?’ he asked, tugging at her panties. She immediately brought her hands to her hips to pull the panties down, but they got tangled between her knees and her calves and he had to reach back to help her remove them. He flung them to the end of the bed and lowered himself onto her.

Sherlock jerked upwards when John laid his cock firmly and insistently against her buttocks, rolling from one side to the other before he settled in the groove between them. Her body felt smooth and bare against his hairy chest, and he thought it would be nice to feel more of her. He forgot their height difference then, forgot the extra inches he had never known quite what to do with—he had always loved her tall lankiness, but had also feared that she would find him too short, too _adorable_ for her—because with Sherlock gasping underneath him and bucking her hips against his, he had never felt more capable.

‘Oh, fuck,’ Sherlock swore. ‘That’s it, John,’ she said with a cry as he shifted his weight and slid his cock downwards. ‘That’s it.’

‘So you like it like this, do you?’ He chuckled and rubbed his cock more firmly against her. Her legs spread underneath him and he eased downwards so that she could feel his balls on her arse. Sherlock began to grab at the sheets, her hands curled and tense, kneading the fabric as she pushed her hips upwards. Now it was his turn to gasp at the softness of her skin and the roundness of her arse and the knowledge that he and no one was else was doing this to Sherlock Holmes.

He spat quietly onto his fingers before he put them between her legs, relieved to find that she was already wet. He rubbed softly, hesitatingly, at the edges of her labia, bringing the wetness out from between them before he circled lower, searching for her clit. But John  _would_  be slow, despite the fickleness of saliva, and Sherlock cried out in half-pain before John pulled his fingers away in apology, afraid that he had hurt her. 

John walked to the bureau across the room and rummaged through the top drawer for the lube he used to masturbate. Sherlock noticed, as John turned to come back, how the round curve of his arse stood out against his legs, and how his penis bounced with each step, before Sherlock hid her head and let John surround her once more from behind.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘It’s just—’ she started, then, ‘Go slowly, when you're coming from that direction. I usually touch myself the other way.’ He put the lube on his fingers and tried again, skimming the short fissure from her anus to the hollow below, playing again with her labia before darting between them to find the opening. Gently, ever so gently, he slid his fingers inside her and waited to see how she would respond. ‘I--.’ Sherlock tried to turn over, and when John hushed her and kept her in place beneath him, she responded by reaching back to grab his knees. She ran her hands up the inside of his legs and had just skimmed the edge of his balls when John moved his fingers more deeply inside her.

‘Fuck, that’s _it,_ ‘ Sherlock said, as John pressed into her with his fingers and rubbed his thumb softly over her clit. Sherlock’s cunt was tight at first, even with the lube and with John’s skilful fingers and his reassurances that _it was alright, it would all be alright, Sherlock just needed to relax_. So John pulled his fingers out of her, spread them with more lube, and began to make circles around her labia, edging closer to her clitoris with every round. He could feel the tightness in Sherlock’s hamstrings and saw how her back arched, as if she were trying to bring her arse closer to him. He removed his fingers without warning; she protested as he slid out but grew quiet when he lifted her hips, arranging her so that she was on her hands and knees before him.

He had thought about this often enough, had thought about how he’d make Sherlock tremble and beg beneath him, but he was startled by how much he enjoyed seeing Sherlock on all fours, opening her legs for him. ‘You like this, don’t you?’ he whispered, pulling back enough to examine her more thoroughly in the dim morning light. He lightly stroked her buttocks and then, carefully, put his fingers in her crack and opened her wide. John wanted to see _all_ of her: the sparse hairs, the wet lips of her vulva, the tight daisy of her anus. He yearned to feel her all over, to put his cock deep into her cunt and to rub his fingers around the outside of her arsehole. ‘You’d like me to fuck you like this, wouldn’t you?’ he asked in a low voice. ‘Doggy style, perhaps with a finger _here_.’ He pressed against her anus and she shuddered and sobbed beneath him. ‘I _would_ consider it, Sherlock.’ Her cry was long and low, but she grew silent when he continued speaking. ‘You want to feel dirty, don’t you? You’re _depraved,_ Sherlock. Look at you, on your hands and knees before me. You want it so bad, I can tell.’ He spread her buttocks more widely and knelt down to blow on her arsehole, to show her what he wanted to do to her.

‘You  _are_  going to fuck me, aren’t you?’ she asked from below. ‘Or are you just a tease?’

‘Oh, I can tease, Sherlock,’ John responded. ‘Question is: can you take it?’

Sherlock lifted her head, turning again in that owlish way to look at John, before she buried her head against the sheets and cried out, softly, for John to please do something, for John to enter her with his cock like he was hinting at with his fingers, to quit the teasing and hurry up already before she dried up.

‘John,’ she said again. ‘I’m ready.’

Was this what Sherlock sounded like, when she was begging? There was a catch in her voice, a hesitance that John had only heard a handful of times before tonight. He still thought he was not going to fuck her, no matter how wet she was, no matter how wide she spread her legs. He wanted less than that, and more than that—he wanted to hear her like this, desperate and caught, longing for something that he would only give her later. John wasn’t so deluded as to think that a woman needed a cock, but he did believe that Sherlock would be more amenable to the idea if he made her wait, if he teased her with his hands and his mouth until she shattered into bright bursts of light, spreading outwards and filling her lungs and hands with shimmering tremors of fire, and only then, after several nights of pyrotechnics, would he fuck her.

Best begin now, he thought. He lowered his fingers to her clitoris again and made wide, slow strokes around it, listening carefully for her response to his strokes.

‘God,’ Sherlock panted, ‘John. God – yes, that’s it. Yes, right there. John. John. Fu-u-u-uck.’ John slowed his fingers, delaying her orgasm, bringing her closer to her release without letting it break upon her.

Sherlock writhed underneath him, as if she were trying to escape John’s fingers, but John held fast to one of Sherlock’s sharp hips with his right hand, pinning her tightly against the mattress as he probed her more deeply with his fingers.

‘You like it like this, don’t you, Sherlock?’ he asked in a self-satisfied tone. ‘You like the idea of letting someone else take control for once.’ She gasped, and that was her answer. ‘I knew you would,’ he told her.

‘Did you, then?’ she panted. ‘I thought you might have an inkling of what to do. But--I must admit you have—exceeded—all—.’ She broke off with a moan, unable to continue.

‘I _am_ good at this,’ he said. ‘But now I want you to touch yourself,’ he commanded. ‘And I am going to keep doing  _this_.’ He returned his finger to the wet slit between her legs, holding still until she put her fingers around her clitoris, as he had asked, and began to stroke herself. Sherlock’s movements were steady and predictable, loose circles around her centre that grew faster by the minute, and John took note for later even as he slid his hand more deeply inside her, turning his wrists and splaying his fingers until he could feel the rough underside of her clit. Sherlock worked herself on the outside and John worked her inside, and together they were reaching, reaching, shooting for something beyond themselves, between the panting and the sighs and the slick run of sweat that joined their bodies. John insinuated himself more deeply inside her until he felt the round bud of Sherlock’s cervix, and when she shook and jerked he withdrew and added another finger, so there were three of his fingers inside her, and two of hers outside, and they were working together, always together, to bring her to this moment—

 


	4. Chapter 4

Sherlock rose suddenly, an augmented fourth moving to the fifth, the unbearable anguish of the devil’s tone, suspended and yearning, then back to the tonic, G major. John was the tonic, the low rumble of the open string, her cure and deliverance, so that delivering herself to him, she was satisfied.

The aftershocks of the chord hung in the air for several seconds, each of them alert to the other’s intentions, waiting for the pulse to disperse so they could put down their instruments. Sherlock crumpled flat upon the bed, splaying her arms wide and exhaling loudly into the sheets. John ran his fingers along her lower back, then dropped his head to kiss the tops of her buttocks with light, playful kisses.

‘I love this arse,’ he said. Sherlock squirmed languorously underneath him, sighing when he moved his hands to her shoulders and lay on top of her, nestling his face into her hair.

‘Oh, my,’ she said. John laughed and said her name. ‘What?’ she asked him lazily.

‘You—that was—that is—you were beautiful. Are beautiful. Like this, with me.’ He kissed her ear and got hair in his mouth, but she seemed to like these kisses, too, and so he kept his mouth pressed against her temple. ‘Is this alright, Sherlock?’

‘It’s already the morning after,’ she responded. ‘So what do you think?’ She turned so that she could look up at him, press her breasts against his chest. He sighed into her hair, kissed her neck and her chin, and grabbed her hips. Sherlock let her legs fall open and reached down to take John’s cock in her hands. It was large and warm, and softer than she had expected, though why she should always imagine cocks to be rough was a puzzle to her, when she knew that her own body was smooth and permissive.

She had heard John make love to other women in the first two years they had lived together. The walls of the flat were thin and Sherlock had been able to hear, from her room, the other women’s cries as they approached orgasm. She hadn’t mentioned it to John, of course; if she mentioned it, he would be embarrassed, and would try to keep quiet, and she would lose the opportunity to learn more about the way he made love. She justified her curiosity, in the early years, by a desire to learn more about the sex lives of thirty-something Londoners. It would never have occurred to her to put herself in that category—nor John, for that matter, once she understood that either he had a knack for picking women who knew how to fake an orgasm, or he was extremely skilled with his mouth and fingers (and thus not the typical English male).

Sherlock put him down in her index as a ‘man who knows how to get women off,’ and though she was occasionally tempted to use Mycroft’s cameras to get a closer look—breaking into his CCTV frequency was easy pickings, as far as her hacking skills were concerned—she found it far more intriguing to deduce his sexual behaviour from the small clues he left for her. For example: John had a partner once who was anorgasmic, as far as Sherlock could tell, and time he’d spent nearly an hour working her with his mouth before they both gave up in frustration. Sherlock knew well enough what female ecstasy sounded like, and she didn’t hear the tell-tale signs that night. But she noticed that John chewed more slowly the next day, and she remembered how long his ginger partner had cried and moaned without reaching a definite conclusion to her suffering, and she formed three hypotheses: 1) the ginger woman had silent orgasms; 2) said ginger was anorgasmic but enjoyed oral sex and was willing to let John eat her out; or 3) she simply never came that night, though she did have the capacity for orgasm. Perhaps it was the experiment that Sherlock had left in the passage—rotten eggs _did_ have the tendency to make one queasy—though Sherlock would never have admitted to any responsibility in the matter, had John dared to bring it up with her.

In any case _, Sherlock_ was the one in John’s bed at the moment, and she was more than willing to spread her legs for him, now that he had shown her just how good he was, just how well he could anticipate her needs. She was playing with the cock in her hands, running her slim fingers up and down the shaft, trying to get a sense for how close he was to orgasm, when she had the wicked urge to lead him into her and see how he would react. As she continued to work John with one hand, she used the other to ease herself open, satisfied at how wet and loose she still was.

‘Oh— _Sherlock,_ ’ John moaned as she guided him in. Once she was certain of his placement inside her—there was nothing more frustrating than a poorly-aimed penis—she reached around him and grabbed his buttocks to pull him in more deeply. She felt him touch her deep within her, almost _too_ deep, as missionary had never been her favourite position; regardless, Sherlock revelled in the sounds John was making, the dirty slap of his hips against her thighs. He pulled out suddenly and rested on his forearms, looking Sherlock in the eyes.

‘Do you have any condoms?’ he asked. She shook her head and rolled her eyes.

‘Do _I_ have any condoms? Not likely,’ she said.

He was about to ask her what she meant by that, but the doorbell rang below.

Sherlock grew tense beneath him and looked up at him searchingly.

‘Who is it?’

John groaned and hit his forehead with his hand. ‘It’s Harry and Clara with Elise,’ he said. ‘Bloody hell, they’re early.’

Sherlock sat up, searching for her clothes. She took one look at John, spread out on the mattress and still aroused, and decided it was imprudent for him to go downstairs.

‘You wait here,’ Sherlock said hurriedly. ‘I’ll manage.’

‘Sherlock!’ John cried. ‘We can still—’ But Sherlock was already tugging on her panties and vest.

‘Stay here, John,’ Sherlock commanded. ‘You can’t possibly go downstairs with _that_.’ She pointed at his erection and John felt the blush rise up his chest and arrive at his face. He pulled the sheets around him, remembering all the times when Sherlock had flounced around the flat in a bed sheet. The joke was on him, now.

‘But _you_ can’t bring up Elise by yourself,’ John retorted. ‘Harry and Clara will wonder why I’m not here.’

‘I’m sure I’ll come up with an adequate excuse,’ Sherlock said as she pulled on her pyjama trousers. ‘You had an emergency at the surgery. Sarah was ill and couldn’t go in.’ She stood and glanced around the room, pulled his phone out from the wall socket, and handed it to him. ‘Send Harry a text message,’ she commanded. ‘Tell them you had an emergency at work and I’m going to take Elise for a few hours. And get out of here! This is where you were going to put the crib, isn’t it? Go hide in my room.’

‘Sherlock—’ John began, his voice rising.

Sherlock interrupted him. ‘Now be quiet or they will hear you and wonder what’s going on!’

‘Fucking A,’ John said, leaning back into the pillows. Of all the times for his sister to be early, it _had_ to be this morning.

He reassured himself that he would get off later in the shower while he was remembering the fullness of Sherlock’s arse as she arched her back and let him press his fingers inside of her. He would go back further and recollect what Sherlock looked like as she cupped her breasts in her own hands, how she crossed her arms to pull her vest up and over her head, how she had given him that first sweet kiss. Getting off to Sherlock’s image was the easy part; getting Sherlock back into bed was less certain. Damn Harry and Clara and their rotten timing!

Faintly, he could hear the sound of the door opening below and Sherlock speaking some kind of greeting to his sister. He had better move now, before they came upstairs with the baby and found him still lying in his bed.

John looked around for his pants and dressing robe, slid them on quickly, and proceeded on tiptoe to Sherlock’s room. The women were making their way up the stairs to the flat now; he had only a few seconds before he had to be absolutely still.

Later, they would laugh about this. Sherlock would tell him about the expression on Harry’s face when she saw Sherlock at the door instead of John, and John would tell her about his last-minute scramble to send the text message so it looked like it got there just as they did. He would see by the way that Sherlock held Elise against her hip that Sherlock _did_ know what to do with a baby, even if she denied any knowledge of that particular branch of learning, and John wondered what that meant, that Sherlock could ramble at length about ‘developmental milestones’ and ‘speech markers’ and the correlation between birth weight and cognitive scores at age five. She even consented to feed Elise and put her down for her nap one afternoon when there really _was_ an emergency at the surgery and John was called out for the rest of the day.

He returned to the flat late that night and found Elise in her crib and Sherlock asleep in his bed, wearing only her panties and a loose blouse.

He sat down on the bed and watched Sherlock for several minutes. He rarely had the opportunity to observe her like this, quiet and still, and he reasoned that she must have been worn out by taking care of Elise all afternoon and evening. Sherlock’s dark curls lay across the pillows and he remembered how she had looked the previous morning, naked and panting beneath him, and then he looked to Elise in the crib, and shook his head.

‘She looks like you,’ Sherlock said.

He turned to Sherlock, startled. ‘Does she?’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Anyone with half a brain could see that she’s your daughter.’

‘Not Harry’s?’ he asked. ‘That’s what people say, sometimes.’

‘On average, siblings share half of their genetic material. Of course people will say that Elise looks like Harry, because Harry looks like you. But they’re fools,’ she murmured sleepily. ‘Now, come back to bed...’

He slipped his trousers off and slid under the quilts next to her. Sherlock’s arms were warm, her mouth inviting, and there was the sweet smell of orange blossoms and sleep about her. He held her tightly and whispered to her to stay with him for the night.

'I’m in your bed, aren’t I?’ she replied as she leaned into his kiss.

He gave a low chuckle and held her close. ‘Yes, you are,’ he said. ‘And there’s a baby across the room who’s going to wake up if we make any more noise.’

‘Cock-blocked again,’ Sherlock observed. Her laughter was light and bubbly, as if she could barely contain it. ‘Next you are going to tell me that I had better behave myself or you’ll toss me out.’ She insinuated a leg between his, testing him.

‘You tease,’ John said, burrowing his face into her neck and trapping her in his arms. ‘Oh, you are a bad girl, Sherlock Holmes.’

She let out another peel of that loose, precious laughter, and hope perched in John’s chest.


End file.
